


Inside Her Mind

by Emilia_Rowan



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Lena Luthor Finds Out Kara Danvers is Supergirl, Lena needs therapy, Little Boxes, Mind Palace, Post 4x22, Unpacking emotions, lena needs a hug, my take on how the reveal scene should’ve happened, post-reveal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-02-09 22:05:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18647002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emilia_Rowan/pseuds/Emilia_Rowan
Summary: Lena is in a coma and Kara is sent into her Mind Palace where they have to sort through all of Lena’s little boxes before Lena can regain consciousness.





	1. LEX

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a tumblr post about Alex’s mind palace and that made me start to wonder what Lena’s mind palace would be like. And this was born. It started as a one-shot but then I decided to break it into short chapters.

Kara thought she had prepared herself for any possible manifestation of Lena’s mind palace. She wondered if she would find Lena’s subconscious in her office at L-Corp, or in her lab, or maybe her shiny new apartment. She even braced for the possibility of finding herself in the infamous Luthor mansion where Lena grew up.

Kara did not expect to find herself in what looked like a small cottage. She turned around and found a pale wooden door behind her, with a rounded top and a small, diamond-shaped stained-glass window set in the center. From where she stood Kara could see a small kitchen to her right with butcher-block countertops and an exposed brick wall, copper cookware hanging from the ceiling, a steaming kettle on the stove. To her left was a small, cozy living room, knit throw blankets tossed haphazardly over a plush, slightly lumpy sofa and two mismatched chairs— there was no television, but one wall was made up entirely of bookshelves packed full of every variety of book ranging from children’s books to science textbooks. The walls in every room were painted a soft, pale yellow that made the house feel like sunshine.

What struck Kara as odd, however, were the boxes. Simple file boxes like those used at L-Corp to store old paper documents. They were stacked floor to ceiling in every single room, taking up every square inch of floor space and leaving only a narrow walkway between them. Kara was careful as she made her way around them, searching down the short hallway for Lena. 

She passed one open door and saw a neat bedroom with pale green walls, decorated with mismatched furniture all painted a soft cream color. This room held no boxes that Kara could see, and it was immaculately clean, the blankets and quilts of the bed tucked in neatly, the pillows fluffed and artfully arranged. She moved past the space, further down the hall, careful of one stack of precariously placed boxes, until she found another open door.

This last room was another bedroom, but much smaller. The walls were painted a pale lilac and a child-sized daybed sat beneath a window. Toys and games and puzzles were spread across the floor, between the various boxes that sat here and there.

Lena Luthor was perched on the small bed, knees pulled up to her chest, face buried in her crossed arms. She wasn’t dressed in her usual pencil skirt, but instead wore black leggings and a cashmere sweater that Kara knew to be her favorite. Her dark hair was loose, falling in soft waves around her shoulders. Kara fought the urge to run to her friend, but she knew startling Lena here would be a bad idea. Instead she knocked softly on the doorframe.

“Lena? It’s me.”

Lena looked up with wide, glassy eyes. “Kara?”

Kara nodded. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“Right,” Lena said slowly. “And where is _here_ , exactly?”

“Well, we’re in your mind palace,” Kara explained awkwardly.

Lena raised a brow. “Come again?”

“Lena, you were injured in a fight with Lex, do you remember?” Kara asked.

Lena blinked slowly and furrowed her brow. “I think so. It’s a little blurry but, yes, I remember. I remember… _Oh_.”

“Yeah,” Kara cringed, reaching up to adjust her glasses but finding nothing. For a moment she panicked and then she caught sight of herself in the mirror above the small vanity in the corner of this bedroom. She was dressed in her usual human clothes— olive chinos and a pale pink blouse under a cream-colored sweater. But her hair was down in loose curls and she wasn’t wearing her glasses. She normally only looked like this, this in-between, when she was around Alex, and she hadn’t even been able to be this around her for several months now.

“Anyway,” Kara said, pulling herself back to the issue at hand— they could deal with her identity reveal once Lena was actually awake. “You’re in a coma. You’ve been unconscious for four days now. Your physical injuries are healing just fine— although, fair warning, your left wrist is going to be in a cast for six weeks, according to Alex. Brainy says there’s no physical reason you should still be unconscious, so I had him send me here kind of like how he sent you and me and Alex into that other dimension to save Sam. Except instead of a different dimension he sent me inside your subconscious mind.”

Lena looked around the small bedroom. “So this is all in my mind?”

“Yeah, Brainy calls it a mind palace. It’s the physical manifestation of the place in which your subconscious feels most comfortable,” Kara explained. “For me it’s my loft. So… I guess you know better than I do where we are.”

Lena’s gaze fell on the window. Outside Kara could see rolling green hills and in the distance she could hear water splashing.

“I think this is where I lived before I was adopted,” Lena said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. “This is the house I lived in with my mother before she died. This was my bedroom.”

Kara’s eyes widened and her heart pounded as she took the space in with a new light. Suddenly this place made perfect sense, and the reason it was Lena’s mind palace made perfect sense as well.

“It’s lovely,” Kara said finally.

“Yes, it is,” Lena agreed. “I thought I had forgotten this place. Apparently it’s still in my brain somewhere.” She sat quietly for a long moment. “So you said there’s no physical reason that I should be unconscious. If that’s the case, why am I still in a coma?”

Kara shook her head. “I’m not sure. The same thing happened to me after I lost that fight with Reign last year. Brainy had to enter my mind palace to help me find my way out. Apparently my subconscious had to work through some issues before it would let me wake up.”

“And you think the same thing is happening to me?” Lena asked.

“Seems logical,” Kara said with a shrug.

Lena nodded in agreement. “Okay, so, since you’ve done this before, what do we do?”

“Well, when it happened to me, I started looking for anything out of place, anything that might be a clue from my subconscious,” she explained. “So, is there anything out of place or different about this place and what you remember about the house you grew up in?”

“Oh yeah, that’s easy,” Lena replied quickly. “The boxes.”

“Yeah, I was gonna ask what was up with those,” Kara admitted, looking around the room and out into the hallway.

“Eh… coping mechanism,” Lena said, scooting to the edge of the bed. At Kara’s curious expression she explained further. “I learned pretty early in life that if I let my emotions get the better of me I would spend all my time a blubbering mess trying to deal with my issues and I would never get anything done. So I learned to put those emotions in boxes out of the way so I could focus on other things.”

Kara frowned at her. “Lena… I’m not sure that’s entirely healthy.”

Now it was Lena’s turn to shrug. “I never said it was healthy, but it’s effective.”

Kara glanced down the hallway. “Yeah, but… That’s a lot of boxes.”

“I never expected to see a physical manifestation of my psychological trauma, Kara, give me a break,” Lena replied with a glare.

Kara held her hands up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry, I was just making an observation.”

Lena stood from the bed and looked around at the boxes in the floor— this room wasn’t nearly as cluttered as some of the others. Then she moved past Kara and glanced into the hallway. Kara could see the rise and fall of her Adam’s apple as she gulped.

“You don’t think we have to go through _all_ the boxes, do you?” she asked, and Kara would’ve laughed at the question if not for the trepidation she could hear in Lena’s voice over the possibility.

“I don’t think so,” Kara replied. She certainly hoped not. She didn’t think she was qualified to help Lena with that much emotional baggage, no matter how much she loved her friend. Maybe when they got out of this Lena could talk to somebody, a professional. Lena would probably hate her for it, but Kara made a mental note to call Kelly Olsen to see if she could help Lena deal with her trauma. She didn’t think that could make the real-life situation with Lena any worse.

“So where do we start?” Lena asked, pulling Kara’s focus back to the task at hand.

“Well, the boxes are out of place, but let’s look and see if anything else sticks out. Maybe that big brain of yours will give us another clue.”

Lena snorted at that and her face looked skeptical, but she looked all around her bedroom. She even tried to open one of the boxes and found that the top wouldn’t budge, in a way proving Kara’s theory that they wouldn’t have to open every single box in the house.

“Okay, well, if nothing jumps out I guess we can just try them all and deal with the ones that open, hmm?” she said as she stepped past Kara into the hallway. Kara followed her past the other bedroom— Lena barely glanced inside— into the living room. Lena froze as soon as she stepped through the doorway. “Was that there when you came in here?”

Kara looked over Lena’s shoulder to see a that there were far fewer boxes in the living room than there were earlier, but one specific box sat in the center of the beat-up coffee table and on top of that box was a marble chess board just like the one in Lena’s office at L-Corp.

“No, that wasn’t there before,” Kara replied. She followed Lena into the living room, sitting in one of the chairs while Lena sat on the edge of the lumpy sofa.

Lena moved the chess set and looked at the box. Unlike all the others, this one has a neatly-printed label on on one side.

**LEX**

Lena wrinkled her nose as she easily pulled the lid off the box. “Damn, I was hoping that would be stuck.”

Kara wanted to look, but instead she waited for Lena to take the lead— this was her mind, afterall— and watched as the dark-haired woman peered into the box.

“Oh my God,” Lena exclaimed, her voice a breathy whisper. She pulled out a pair of child’s ice skates and sat them on the table beside the box. Then she pulled out a stack of Playbill magazines and several ticket stubs and brochures from different landmarks. “These are from our first Christmas in Metropolis after I was adopted. Lionel was busy with business and Lillian spent most of her time shopping with her friends. Lex took me everywhere around town, showed me all of the touristy sites, took me to a different play almost every night. And then afterward we would get hot cocoa and go to the skating rink. It took three nights before I could skate without holding his hand and not fall down.”

Lena frowned as her thumb traced a deep scuff on the toe of one of the skates. “I remember this. I fell and twisted my ankle that third night and couldn’t go back. Lex was so disappointed he—“

Suddenly her voice trailed off and Kara could see it in her mind’s eye just as clearly as Lena remembered it— tiny Lena with her dark braided pigtails and bright green eyes looking up at tall, teenage Lex, a mop of unruly brown curls atop his head, a wide smile splitting his face.

_”Careful, Princess, stay with me,” Lex said._

_“Let go, Lex, I can do it!” Lena insisted, yanking at their joined hands. “I wanna try on my own!”_

_Lex’s smile turned into a frown as Lena yanked at their hands again. After a moment staring at her petulant pout he dropped her hand._

_“Okay, but don’t go to far, Princess,” he told her, and the nickname came out more like an insult than a term of endearment._

_Little Lena didn’t seem to notice. A wide smile replaced her pout and a moment later her laughter rang out like the pealing of bells. “Look, Lex, I’m doing it! I can do it!”_

_Instead of a proud expression, Lex’s features twisted into a scowl as Lena began skating slightly ahead of him. Suddenly it was like a shadow passed over his features and his long arm lashed out, catching Lena’s shoulder hard but quick, just enough to throw off her precarious balance._

_“Lex!” Lena shouted as she crashed to the ice with bruising force._

_“Don’t cry,” Lex chastised severely, standing over the little girl with arms crossed. “Luthors don’t cry. And you_ are _a Luthor, aren’t you?”_

Kara blinked as the memory faded and her attention returned to where she sat beside Lena, deep in her subconscious. Lena was blinking and she looked away from Kara, trying to disguise brushing aside a tear as scratching her cheek.

“Let’s see what else is in here,” Lena said, her voice wobbly.

Lena dove back into the box and pulled out a small trophy, a gold plastic chess piece mounted on top. Following that was a crumpled up paper that Kara recognized as a menu of some sort.

“Oh, I remember this. It was my first chess tournament after Lionel died,” she said softly, running her fingers over the gold plastic knight. “Lionel had always tried to come to my matches— he didn’t always make it, but that would be the first one when he didn’t make it because he was dead. Lillian never came and that wasn’t about to change. Lex was studying for his masters and his college was four hours away, but when I got off the bus he was standing there waiting. He had driven the whole way, just to sit through a high school chess tournament.”

“Did you win?” Kara asked. Lena raised her brow as if this was the stupidest question she had ever heard and Kara grinned. She reached for the menu on Lena’s lap. “ _Lori’s Diner_?”

“Yeah, after the tournament was over, Lex took me out to eat. Our parents would’ve had us going to some expensive restaurant with Michelin stars, but instead Lex and I found this little hole in the wall place that served deliciously unhealthy food that we were never allowed to eat growing up.” Lena grinned, running her thumb along the soft lines of the paper menu. “We stuffed ourselves on all the things our parents would’ve never let us eat. My stomach was upset for days after, I won’t lie, but oh, was it worth it.”

Kara giggled at that. Lena placed the trophy and the menu beside the other objects and reached back into the box. She pulled out a small metal device with a gasp.

“I can’t believe this is here,” she said, handing the device Kara.

“What is it?” Kara asked, studying the small, unassuming piece of technology.

“It’s a Kryptonite detection scanner,” she said softly. “I made it when I was seventeen.”

Kara’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Seriously? Why?”

“Well, at that point, nobody had invented one yet,” Lena said simply. “Lex was still on good terms with Superman. I thought I was being helpful.”

“Did you ever use it?” Kara asked.

“No, but I did show it to Lex,” Lena said, and her expression darkened. “He said it was a stupid idea. Kryptonians only have one weakness, he said, and someday humans might have to use it against them. It wouldn’t do humans any good if the Kryptonians could detect the Kryptonite before it was used on them. An invention like mine would just bite us in the ass.”

“Oh,” Kara said softly.

Lena nodded. “I should’ve known then that his _friendship_ wasn’t as genuine as Lex tried to make it seem. But…”

“He’s your brother,” Kara said softly. “I get it, Lena, I really do.”

“He is also a narcissistic psychopath and an expert manipulator,” Lena scowled.

“Well, yes, that, too.”

“I—“ Lena began, but she cut herself off. She straightened her shoulders and dropped the device onto the table, reaching back into the box. 

The next thing she pulled out was a handful of what looked like black plastic strings. She pulled them apart and Kara realized they were zip-ties. Lena glared at the tiny severed pieces of plastic before suddenly raring back and hurling them across the room with a roar. Kara’s eyes widened at the outburst but she didn’t say anything. Lena took a deep breath and then turned to Kara, as if remembering she was there.

“Did you know that during the whole Red Sun, Kill Superman murder spree, Lex kept me tied to a chair in his office at LuthorCorp?”

“I, uh, no, I didn’t know that,” Kara admitted.

“Well, that’s what he did,” Lena said with a frown. “He tied me to a damn chair and monologued about how _he_ was the hero saving the planet from death and destruction all while people died and buildings collapsed at his hand. He ranted and raved about monsters from other planets while showing that he was the worst monster of them all.”

Angry tears welled up in Lena’s eyes and she reached up and wiped her eyes roughly. She sniffled as she looked around at where the zip-ties had landed in the floor. “The same person who held my hand and taught me to skate, who clapped louder than anyone else when I won a chess tournament, who laughed with me over chili-cheese fries was the person who killed… God, I don’t even know what the final total was, Kara, after all the casualties were counted up. And I was blind to it all. All I could see was the boy I grew up with, not the monster he had become. I didn’t see it until it was too late.”

Kara wanted to hug her friend. She watched as Lena’s shoulders shook and for the first time Kara knew that she wasn’t the only one on the planet who felt like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. Lena held that burden as well, and she shouldered it without super-strength or any other powers. Where Kara took the weight because she felt it was her responsibility as someone with incredible powers, Lena took the weight as a way to pay a debt that she hadn’t created in the first place.

Lena wiped at her face again, leaving red marks on her cheeks. “What he didn’t know, though, while he was going on and on about his grand scheme, was that I was wearing a wire. I had been working with Metropolis Police and the FBI, even Homeland Security for months. Lex wanted me to work with him. Instead I took everything he sent me and gave it to the authorities.”

“You did the right thing,” Kara assured her.

“Yes, but I did it too late,” Lena said vehemently. “If I had realized how far gone he was earlier maybe…” Her voice trailed off weakly. “Maybe he wouldn’t have been able to kill as many people as he did. Maybe I could’ve stopped him from going down that path at all.”

She looked back inside the box and her frown deepened. She glanced up and Kara and then sighed, pulling a syringe full of black liquid from inside.

“I guess you know what this is,” she said, turning the syringe over in her hands.

“The serum you made with the Harun-El,” Kara said simply.

Lena nodded. “It— I’m not going to apologize for making it, Kara. That stone has incredible healing properties and if I can just get the kinks worked out—“

“I don’t expect you to apologize, Lena. You don’t have to apologize for doing the right thing,” Kara said softly.

Lena stared at her, mouth agape. “Really?”

“I meant what I said that day in Eve’s lab, even more so now than I did then,” Kara said. “I trust you, Lena Luthor. I know that you always have the best intentions at heart with everything you do. My only concern is that the things your brilliant mind creates tend to end up in the wrong hands. You tend to put your trust in people who take advantage of your good heart.”

Lena blushed at that. “Well, you’re not wrong.”

“Maybe… maybe you just need a sounding board?” Kara suggested. “Someone who’s actually trustworthy to have in your corner, not to tell you no, but just to give you advice on things. You don’t have to do everything alone, you know.”

“And who is that supposed to be?” Lena scoffed. “I thought I had people I could trust around me before and they’ve lied to me every time. Even—“

“Even me,” Kara said softly, finishing her sentence.

Lena’s jaw clenched and she nodded. She placed the syringe on the table and twisted her fingers together.

“Tell me something,” she said finally. “Would you have told me to help cure Lex’s cancer, or would you have told me to let him die in prison?”

Kara sat quietly and worried her lower lip. Her own hands clenched in her lap as she thought about the question. Finally she met Lena’s fierce gaze.

“My gut reaction would be to tell you to let him rot,” she said honestly. “After everything he did, part of me feels like he deserves it.”

Lena nodded solemnly, and Kara knew she had predicted that answer.

“But…” Kara’s voice trailed off. She swallowed hard before answering. “Do you remember Project Myriad? I know it was before you came to National City.”

“It was, but aliens taking over an entire city using mind-control technology does make international news,” Lena said. “Yes, I remember.”

“One of the Kryptonians leading Project Myriad was my Aunt Astra,” Kara said softly. “So I understand having to consolidate happy, loving memories with atrocious acts of violence. And when I was in that same place, I did everything in my power to try and redeem my aunt. I tried to bring her back to the light. I avoided killing her because I believed if she was alive there was still hope that she could go back to the person I loved so much when I was growing up.”

Lena’s eyes sparkled with tears again, and this time Kara braced herself and crossed to sit beside her friend on the couch. The lumpy cushions sank beneath her weight and they both collapsed into each other, sides pressed hard together. Kara didn’t mind and Lena didn’t pull away, so Kara reached out and took Lena’s hand in hers.

“I don’t know what I would’ve told you if you came to me and asked that question, Lena,” Kara said honestly. “But I will say now, in retrospect, that I know better than anyone why you did what you did. We’re not so different, I guess. We hold onto hope even when it seems hopeless to everyone else, even when logically we should let go. Maybe that makes us fools, but at least we’re not alone in our foolishness.”

Lena rested her head on Kara’s shoulder and sniffled. Kara leaned into her, her usual nervous energy stilled, content to stay there for as long as Lena needed.


	2. G.K.D.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara and Lena open the second box.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I did not mean to go so long between posting chapters. Now that I'm on summer break, hopefully I'll be posting updates to things more regularly.
> 
> This chapter has how I think the reveal scene SHOULD HAVE gone.
> 
> Also, trigger warning, slight description of drowning and minor character death. Not much detail. But I cried while writing the flashback scene, not gonna lie.

They stayed like that for several long minutes, until a loud whistle interrupted them. Lena looked at Kara with a puzzled expression, then rose, with some difficulty, from the lumpy sofa. Kara followed her to the kitchen where the kettle on the stove was whistling hotly. They looked around only to find two mismatched mugs sitting nearby on the counter, a tea bag placed neatly in each cup.

“Can we eat and drink here?” Lena asked.

“Your brain, your rules, I guess,” Kara said.

Lena shrugged at that and poured the boiling water into the two mugs. They both waited a few minutes— though Kara could’ve drank hers boiling and been unharmed—before taking a sip.

“Oh, I remember this,” Lena said, her voice thick with nostalgia. “It was my mother’s favorite blend. She had it mailed from family in Ireland. I can’t remember exactly what it was called.”

“It’s really good, and I’m not a big tea drinker,” Kara said, sipping patiently. She glanced back at the living room and her eyes widened. “Okay, that’s weird.”

Lena followed her gaze and gasped. The **LEX** box was gone, along with the chess set and the other boxes in the living room. It just looked like a normal room now, lived in and well loved.

“Part of me wishes I could just stay here,” Lena said softly. “Get reacquainted with this place. I barely remember it in my conscious mind, but the longer I’m here, the more real it feels.”

Kara frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

Lena looked at her sadly. “If I stay here… That means I don’t wake up.”

Kara nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

They sipped their tea down to the last dregs in companionable silence. Once she was finished, Lena looked around the kitchen, which was also devoid of boxes.

“Okay, now what?” she asked.

“Same thing, I guess. Let’s look for anything out of place,” Kara suggested.

They made their way down the hallway. None of the boxes stacked there were labeled, Kara noted. Lena apparently noticed as well, as she didn’t try to open any of them. Instead she paused in front of the doorway to the larger bedroom and sighed.

“I should’ve known,” she said softly.

Kara peered past her and sure enough there was a box in the center of the bed that hadn’t been there before. Kara squinted until she could read the label on the end, but this one was only labeled with initials: **G.K.D.**

“This was my mother’s room,” Lena said as she went to sit on the bed. She ran her fingers over the well-worn handmade quilt that covered the bed, then clenched the thick-knit blanket at the foot of the bed between her fingers. She looked up at Kara and gently patted the opposite side of the bed in invitation. “Don’t make me do this alone.”

Kara practically flew to her side, taking the proffered seat on the other side of the bed. They both sat with their legs folded in front of them, box between them. Lena pulled the lid off the box as she spoke.

“My mother’s name was Grace Kieran Donovan,” she said softly. The first thing she pulled from the box was a photograph in a simple wooden frame, and it made Lena smile. She handed it to Kara. “This is her.”

Kara’s eyes widened as she looked at the woman in the photo. “Oh, Lena, you look…”

“I know,” Lena said softly. “Lillian never told me until she kidnapped me last year, but part of the reason she resented me growing up was because I look so much like my mother. I was a constant reminder of Lionel’s infidelity.”

If Kara had seen the woman in the photograph in public, she would’ve assumed that it was Lena. They had the same dark hair, the same high cheekbones and strong jaw. The biggest difference was that Grace Donovan had hazel eyes instead of green like Lena’s.

Lena pulled another photograph from the box with a smile, and then offered it to Kara. “Here’s another one.”

Grace wasn’t alone in this photo. She was wearing a floral t-shirt and faded denim overalls, her hair was trying to escape from a loose braid, and she was holding a chubby-cheeked, dark-haired infant in her arms. Both Grace and her daughter were laughing in the photo as baby Lena reached toward her mother’s face with chubby fingers. The image sent a wave of warm affection through Kara and she wished she could bring these things to the real world with her when Lena woke up.

Lena reached into the box and pulled out a soft, white, handknit baby blanket. A faint smile graced her lips as she stroked the pattern of the yarn.

“She made this, I think,” Lena said softly. “She could knit, but after I was born she didn’t do it as often. She made this for me while she was pregnant. I remember… somehow. I didn’t even know I remembered, but I do. Is that strange?”

“I think maybe your mind remembers more about your mother than you realized, but you only really remember when you try to focus,” Kara replied. “It’s the same for me when I think about Krypton. I can remember things when I really concentrate, but it hurts to think about it, so I don’t really think about it as much as I should.”

Lena nodded as she set aside the blanket and reached back into the box. Her hand emerged holding a silver locket on a thin chain. Lena frowned and ran her thumb over the surface where two swirling _Ls_ inside a heart were etched into the surface.

“She wore this every day,” Lena said, clicking open the clasp. She squinted for a moment at the small photo inside, then gasped. “My god…”

Kara scooted closer and looked over Lena’s shoulder. The photo in the locket looked like a typical, arranged family portrait. Grace Donovan smiled into the camera holding an infant Lena wrapped in the white knit baby blanket. Beside them stood a tall, bald man with piercing blue eyes, the slight smile on his face barely softening his severe features.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a picture of Lionel smiling before,” Lena said speculatively. She closed the locket and stared at the heart on the outside.

“Do you think the Ls stand for Lena Luthor or…?” Kara speculated.

“I don’t know,” Lena replied. “I don’t know exactly how Lionel felt about Grace. I know she worked for him, in one of his research facilities. I know she was younger than him, and I know he began an affair with her when Lex was just a small child. Lillian found out about it when Grace was pregnant with me and she paid my mother off to keep the secret. If Lionel loved her, he loved his reputation in business more because he wouldn’t be seen divorcing his wife for his mistress.”

Kara nodded. Lena dropped the locket on top of the blanket with a sigh.

“But I also know that he didn’t start drinking so severely until after I was adopted, after she died, so I do wonder…” She shook her head. “Does it really matter, anyway?”

“It does if it matters to you,” Kara replied softly.

Lena looked up and gazed at Kara with an unreadable expression, as if she was trying to sort through more than the box in front of them. Kara wanted to reach up and adjust her glasses, but she remembered they weren’t there. They still had that cloud hanging over them, waiting for the storm.

Next Lena pulled out a beat-up copy of Stellaluna and leafed through it, leaning across the bed so Kara could read along with her.

“This was my favorite bedtime story,” Lena said finally. “It’s… oddly fitting, don’t you think?”

“Mmhmm,” Kara agreed. “I don’t think I ever read this one. I read children’s books when I first came to Earth, but mostly books for English Language Learners. Once I learned English I read books for kids my age, or older. But I like this one. It would’ve been one of my favorites, too.”

“Mama would read to me every night,” Lena said fondly. “Sometimes we would read in my room, but most of the time it was in here. She would read to me and sing…” Lena’s voice faded. “Lex told me he met her once. It was before I was ever born. He said she sang him an Irish song when he was upset. I wonder if it was the same one?”

“Do you remember it?” Kara asked.

“Kara, you know I don’t sing,” Lena insisted.

“You don’t have to _sing_ to sing to a kid,” Kara rebuffed. “Kids don’t care if you sound good, they just hear that you love them.”

“Well, you’re not a child,” Lena told her, but Kara pouted, and Lena couldn’t resist the pout. She scowled at her friend and collapsed back onto the pillow, closing her eyes and breathing in the familiar scent on the pillows.

When Lena’s voice finally sounded Kara felt her heart flutter. She didn’t recognize the words, and some were incoherent where Lena’s memory was faded, but the melody was soft and enchanting, Lena’s mouth twisting the unfamiliar brogue to fit the notes.

“... _Ó chuaigh I gcéin mo ghile mear_ ,” Lena trailed off finally. Kara released a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“You lied to me,” Kara said softly.

Lena cracked open her eyes. “Excuse me?”

“You said you couldn’t sing,” Kara explained. “Lena, that was beautiful.”

Lena blushed pale pink at the comment. She turned her head into the pillow in an attempt to hide it, and inhaled.

“God, I can still smell her shampoo,” she said softly. “She always smelled like vanilla. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been so comfortable around you. Your scent is so similar.”

Now it was Kara’s turn to blush. She laid down in the bed as well, the box between her and Lena. She ran her finger along a seam in the quilt as she thought up her next question.

“Did Lex say anything else about your mother?” she asked after a beat.

Lena was quiet for a moment. “I know now to take everything he says with a grain of salt but I don’t think he had any reason to lie about his impression of her.”

 _That was a non-answer_ , Kara thought, studying Lena’s face. “What did he say?”

Lena looked up at her, green eyes meeting blue. “Lex said that while he came from poison, I came from love. And that if the Luthor family stands in darkness, I will always fall into the light.”

Kara reached across the bed for Lena’s hand, and the green-eyed woman didn’t pull away but gripped her hand tightly back.

“Now that I look back on it I think he was making fun of me,” Lena added. “Lex sees the darkness as power. He probably thinks I’m a fool for trying to be good.”

“Well, if he was making fun of you, he’s got it all wrong,” Kara assured her. “You are strong. It takes strength to stand on the side of good, to not allow yourself to be lured into the darkness. And he was right about you. I can’t say it enough, Lena. You aren’t like your family. You are loving and kind and _good_ in a way that Lex could never comprehend in a million lifetimes. And maybe part of that came from Grace, but I think an even bigger part of that comes from you choosing who you want to be. You’ve had every opportunity to choose a darker path, Lena, and you’ve chosen the light. That was all you.”

“Trust me, Kara, that darkness is still there, it has always been there,” Lena said vehemently. “I am just as dark as the Luthors. I belong with them.”

Before Kara could respond, Lena had reached into the box again. Her eyes went wide with shock as she pulled out a large teddy bear that defied the laws of physics to have fit inside the box at all. Kara wasn’t sure why that was surprising— none of this was real, afterall, but somehow she expected the logical, scientific mind of Lena Luthor to respect the laws of physics.

Lena let out an uncharacteristic giggle as she clutched the bear to her chest. “Hello, Mr. Fluff.”

Kara felt tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Lena looked so soft and young, her dark hair tumbling around her like a veil, face buried in fake fur. She held the bear for several long moments before she seemed to remember that she wasn’t alone. She looked up at Kara with a slight blush.

“This is Mr. Fluff,” she said simply, but she didn’t hand over the bear. “I… He was with me, when my mother died, and when I went to live with the Luthors.”

Lena fiddled with a small string that was hanging off the teddy bear’s ear, brows furrowed as she thought.

“What happened to your birth mother, Lena?” Kara asked. She felt this was the crux of it, the reason this box was here inside Lena’s mind palace for them to dig through.

Lena sighed. “She drowned shortly before I was adopted by the Luthors.”

“Oh,” Kara said. She didn’t add an empty _I’m sorry_ to the soft utterance— Kara had heard those empty words enough to know that they didn’t heal anything. Instead her mind dwelled on the strange opposites in the similarity between her and Lena. Kara had lost the ones she loved to fire, where Lena had lost hers to water.

“We were visiting family, I think,” Lena continued softly. “It was an overcast day, but we went out to the lake anyway. I was on the shore when it happened.”

Like before suddenly Kara could see the scene in her mind’s eye, as if she and Lena were standing there upon a sandy beach, looking out over a swirling lake.

_”You and Mr. Fluff stay right here and take a nap, okay Lena?” Grace asked, her voice soft as she bent down beside a tiny Lena._

_Little Lena nodded from where she sat on a large quilt under an umbrella, familiar teddy bear held against her chest. At Grace’s prodding she lay down on the quilt, stretching out like a starfish and smiling up at her mother._

_Grace laughed at her and bent to kiss her forehead. “Sleep tight,_ mo grá _.”_

_Grace was wearing a sleek swimsuit, something a competitive swimmer would wear, and she tucked her dark hair up into a tight bun beneath a swimmer’s cap before heading toward the water._

_”_ Don’t go _,” adult Lena said. Kara glanced at her and saw that she was shaking. “_ Please don’t go.” __

__

__

_But Grace Donovan couldn’t hear them. She ran to the water and dove in with practiced ease, as if she had done this hundreds of times. Kara knew what happened next, and she looked away from the water— she couldn’t save a memory._

_Lena wasn’t watching the water. Her eyes were on the dark-haired child lying on the quilt nearby. Four-year-old Lena had turned onto her stomach, her head on her folded arms, and she stared out at the water with wide, green eyes. She didn’t look away from the water, didn’t change her expression, didn’t cry out, even when other people on the beach around them started shouting that there was someone in the water, someone had gone under._

_“_ Why didn’t you say anything? _” adult Lena asked, still staring at the child. She was pinching her forearm between her finger and thumb, hard enough that Kara knew she would leave dark purple bruises. “_ Why didn’t you shout, why didn’t you cry? What’s wrong with you? _”_

_Suddenly there was someone beside tiny Lena, a woman with brown hair and the same high cheekbones. She scooped the child up in her arms and ran away from the beach without saying a word, moving to shield her eyes, but it was too late._

_They were already pulling the body from the water._

Back on the bed in Lena’s mind palace, the brunette shook with sobs. Kara didn’t hesitate to scoot across the bed and pull Lena into her arms. For what felt like several long minutes, Lena cried into the teddy bear still in her arms and into Kara’s shoulder.

“Why didn’t I do something?” Lena murmured when her sobs had finally subsided enough for her to speak.

Kara’s forehead crinkled in consternation. “You were what, four?”

Lena nodded. “I was four, but Kara, I knew… I knew something was wrong. I watched her go in and I watched her go under and I knew something was wrong but I just… I didn’t _do_ anything. I didn’t run, I didn’t cry, I didn’t call out for help, I just laid there and watched her die. What kind of person does that?”

Kara shook her head. Of course Lena thought that watching her mother die made her a horrible person. Kara knew otherwise. She just needed the words to prove that to Lena.

“Do you remember what you were thinking when she went under?” she asked. “I know you were only four, but do you remember?”

“I—“ Lena began, struggling with words and memories. “I kept thinking she would come back up, that she would come back to me. Somebody pulled me away but I remember somebody pulled her body out. I wanted to go to her, but they wouldn’t let me. I didn’t understand—“ Suddenly Lena’s green eyes widened in shock and her grip on Kara’s hand tightened. “I didn’t understand that she was dead. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know she was dead.”

Kara nodded. “Then what happened?”

“They took me to the house and I stayed with someone, someone in my mother’s family, I guess,” Lena continued. “I stayed with them for days and I remember asking when Mama was coming back, but they wouldn’t answer me.

“Then one day Lionel came and talked to whoever I was staying with. He told me that he was my father and that I was going to live with him and his family, that I was going to be a Luthor. I remember asking him where Mama was, and he was the first one to really explain to me that she was dead and she wasn’t coming back.” Lena paused in her telling. “He was actually very sad about that, I think. It was one of the few times I can remember him showing any emotion.” 

Kara squeezed Lena’s hand. “Don’t you see, Lena? You are not responsible for what happened to your mother. It was an accident, nothing more, and you were a child. You didn’t really understand what was happening, so how could you be responsible for it?”

Lena was quiet for a long moment before she spoke again. “I didn’t even go to her funeral. I don’t know if it was held before Lionel came or after, but nobody took me. I’m not even sure if she had one.”

“We can look up the records, if you want, when you wake up,” Kara told her.

“Hmm,” Lena murmured. She shifted and looked down, brows furrowed. Kara followed her gaze and the **G.K.D.** box, along with all its contents, were gone.

“That’s a little sad,” Lena said softly. “I would’ve like to keep some of those things a little bit longer.”

“They’re all still in here,” Kara said, tapping her finger against Lena’s temple. She trailed her finger down the side of Lena’s face as she pulled it back, using the pad of her thumb to wipe one remaining tear from her cheek. Lena’s cheeks flushed pink beneath her touch and her gaze flicked away from Kara’s. Kara swallowed hard. “So, should we get up and check the rest of the boxes?”

Lena’s eyes flickered back to hers. “Yeah, I guess, but, um, could we just… could we stay here, just for a few more minutes?”

Kara squeezed the hand that was still securely entwined with hers. “Of course. Your mind, your rules.”

Lena chuckled, and the sound warmed Kara’s heart. For the past four days she had worried that she would never hear the sound of Lena’s laughter again, and not just because Lena might not wake up from her coma.

Four days ago, right before Lena was injured and knocked unconscious, Lena found out that Kara Danvers was Supergirl.

Deep down, Kara had always known it was inevitable that Lena would find out, she just didn’t know that she would find out in the worst way possible.

_They thought he was dead. Supergirl had fought Lex Luthor and caused a system failure on his Lexosuit, and the suit exploded when he crashed to the earth. He should’ve died._

_Kara was with Lena as Kara— not as Supergirl— studying the remains of the suit when Lena discovered the tiny transmatter portal Lex had built into the suit as a last-minute escape. Lena deduced that Lex was laying low in one of the Luthor summer homes in the mountains outside the city. It was almost too obvious, they both realized, so Lena called the DEO for backup, but insisted on going herself first. Lex was still under the effects of the Harun-El serum, but it was slowly killing him while also giving him superhuman powers. Lillian Luthor, of all people, had created an antidote and it had already worked on James, stripping him of his powers but not undoing the healing the serum had already accomplished. Lena hoped to offer Lex the same opportunity before the DEO arrived to arrest him because he might be a villainous, backstabbing psychopath, but he was still her brother._

_Kara went with her— still as Kara, not as Supergirl. It was stupid, really. She should’ve made an excuse, should’ve left Lena and insisted that she was going to call Supergirl and then show up moments later in her supersuit. But Lena insisted there was no time, and Kara hadn’t fought her as adamantly as she should have._

_It was too easy. It was too easy because with his Red Daughter defeated and fused back with Kara, Otis Graves dead for the second—or was it third?— time, Eve Teschmacher in the wind, Ben Lockwood arrested for inciting terrorism, and his body breaking down as a result of his own hubris, Lex Luthor had lost. He had played the long game, with many pieces in his control, but they had dropped one by one. In this giant game of chess, Lena finally had him in a checkmate, cornered and alone._

_But this wasn’t a chess match, and Lex wasn’t going down without taking someone down with him. He was still an evil genius, so somehow Kara found herself separated from Lena and Lex by nearly twenty yards, when the dying man pulled a gun and aimed it at Lena._

_“So which is it going to be,_ Kara _?” he asked, practically spitting her name. “Will you protect your secret or my sister?”_

_And then he pulled the trigger and emptied the clip straight into Lena’s chest. Or, rather, it would’ve been in Lena’s chest if Kara hadn’t raced in front of her and took the bullets to her own torso._

_The incendiary rounds bounced off Kara’s chest like rubber but each one burst into flames on impact and set her shirt on fire. When the final shot was done Kara grabbed the gun and crushed it between her fingers. Fury filled her as she picked Lex Luthor up by the throat and he scrambled in her arms, but his hands flailed pointlessly— or so she thought— before the tip of one finger caught the edge of her glasses and knocked them away. She tossed him away from her, far enough that it should’ve killed a normal human. Kara looked down at the front of her shirt and saw that the entire front had burned away, leaving the suit she wore underneath exposed._

_“Kara?”_

_She knew from Lena’s voice that her friend had already figured it out, but when she turned around and Lena saw her, really saw her, with no glasses and the House of El crest on her chest, the pain on Lena’s face solidified._

_“Lena, I’m so—“ Before she could finish speaking, something barrelled into her side, knocking her to the ground. And then Lex Luthor was on top of her, still capable of superstrength, and his hands were around her throat._

_“This is how you die,_ Supergirl _,” he hissed into her ear. “You die a liar. So much for truth and justice. Did you see her face,_ Kara Zor-El _? Now she knows what you are. Now she knows that you’re nothing but lying alien scum just like your cousin. You are weak, you are pathetic, and you will die as_ nothing _!”_

_Kara struggled against his hands but he was still strong, too strong, and she was still weak, too weak, after fighting her doppelganger and fusing with her the day before. Even with her Kryptonian lung capacity Kara could feel her cells starving for oxygen as she struggled against Lex Luthor’s grip, could feel her body growing weaker with every passing second. And for the first time she felt fear, not for herself, but for what he might do to Lena after she was gone._

_And then suddenly Lex cried out in pain and one of his hands let go of Kara’s throat, flying backwards blindly. Kara saw Lena go tumbling from a backhand more powerful than any human could withstand, and she fell awkwardly, collapsing on one arm and hitting her head a second time on the concrete wall of the bunker. But the younger Luthor had succeeded in her task— a syringe stuck out of Lex’s neck, plunger all the way down, and the antidote was in his system. He screamed in frustration as the superhuman power faded from his body and he rushed Kara again, but this time he only had the strength of a normal human man. Even weakened Kara was able to throw him away from her, against the other wall._

_Thankfully, before she could attack him again— because in that moment she wanted nothing more than to rid the Earth of its most dangerous human resident— the DEO swarmed in and Lex raised his gun toward the agents. Shots rang out, and later a dozen agents would claim to be the one who fatally shot the notorious Lex Luthor, but Kara wasn’t watching._

_“Kara?”_

_She rushed to Lena’s side at the sound of her weak voice, carefully rolling her over. Her left wrist hung at an awkward angle and Kara didn’t need her x-ray vision to know that it was broken. Lena looked up at her with uneven pupils and blood trickled from a cut on the side of her forehead._

_“I’m right here, Lena, you’re going to be okay,” Kara assured her._

_“Kara, you’re… you’re_ her _,” Lena said, her weak voice a mixture of incredulity and betrayal._

_“I… Yes, I am,” Kara told her. “And I promise, as soon as you’re better I’ll explain, I’ll tell you everything Lena. I’m so, so sorry.”_

_“But_ why _?” Lena asked._

_Kara swallowed hard. “I— there are so many reasons, Lena. None of them are good enough, and I’m sorry.”_

_“Trust… me?” Lena said weakly, her eyes flickering._

_“Lena, stay with me,” Kara told her. “Alex!”_

_“Kara,” Lena said, her voice barely a whisper._

_“I do trust you, Lena,” Kara said, tears streaming down her face. “I trust you, I do, it was never about that it was never…” But Lena’s eyes had slipped closed and her breathing was becoming erratic. Kara scanned her body and saw that the impact hadn’t just broken her wrist and hit her head but also bruised her ribs and caused internal bleeding. “Alex! Director Danvers! We need a medic! She needs a medic now!”_

“Kara?”

Kara opened her eyes with a start, meeting concerned green orbs.

“Did you fall asleep on me?” Lena asked with a soft smile.

Kara shook her head. “Not entirely, just thinking. I guess we should get back to those boxes, huh?”

Lena looked like she would much rather stay in bed beside Kara, and that thought was far too tempting to Kara as well. But they had to get this done, had to get Lena awake from her coma and back to the real world. So Kara pushed herself up from the bed and held out a hand to help Lena to her feet as well. Lena smoothed out the blankets on the bed before they stepped out into the hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Lena sings is Mo Ghille Mear (My Gallant Hero) and this is a gorgeous arrangement of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxjvNUNXhkU
> 
> Stellaluna was one of my favorite children's books and if you're not familiar with it, you can read a little summary here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellaluna
> 
> And mo grá means "my love" in Irish.
> 
>  
> 
> Please leave comments, they make my heart happy!

**Author's Note:**

> They made it through the first box. What do you think will be in the next box?
> 
> I live for comments so let me know what you think!
> 
> Also I have a tumblr @emiliarowan so feel free to check out that corner of nerddom if you would like.


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